Bristol Past

St Peter's Hospital

St Peter's Hospital was a building of contrasts. Its riot of
decoration was a display of
wealth, yet for a long time it housed the poorest of the poor.

Watercolour of St Peter's Hospital from the churchyard in 1894 by Mary
Kathleen Moore. It was
built as a merchant's house (right) and workplace (left). (Bristol
Museum and Art Gallery)

Of all the glories of Bristol lost in the Blitz, one of the
most mourned is the exuberant St
Peter's Hospital. Built as a merchant's house, it was a showcase of
Jacobean architecture. The taste of the time ran to lavish ornament and
fanciful figures. Craftsmen had a field day with the façade. The
interior was no less ornate.

The building stood between St Peter's churchyard and the River
Avon. On the terrible night
of 24 November 1940 the whole area was devastated by bombing. Now all
that can be seen is the shell of St Peter's Church, standing in Castle
Park.

Tucked away down a narrow lane behind the church was not the
most obvious place to build a mansion. Yet it had
its advantages. It was away from the bustle of the main streets. A
river frontage was an asset. The first to make the most of the site was
Thomas Norton. He was one of Bristol's merchant princes in the late
14th century, shipping goods to France, Spain and Portugal. Norton
bought up three plots to give himself space for a grand mansion. The
frontage was over 130ft.

This was the house bought two centuries later by another
wealthy merchant, Robert
Aldworth, who transformed it into a Jacobean show-piece. His wealth
sprang from overseas trade. With an eye to the possibilities of the New
World, he played a part in the exploration of northern Virginia.
Aldworth was prominent in the Society of Merchant Venturers, whose coat
of arms he placed on a fireplace of his new mansion. On the river front
he proudly displayed his own monogram and merchant's mark, with the
date 1612.

A satyr leers from the façade. Drawn by Hugh O'Neill in 1821. (Bristol
Museum and Art Gallery)

The façade facing the church was embellished with the satyrs
of Greek and Roman mythology. The effect is far from Classical though.
Jacobean builders liked to graft hints of the Renaissance onto sturdy
vernacular stock. Inside the house pagan imagery gave way to Christian
in a frieze carved with Biblical scenes.

Beside all this domestic display, Aldworth built himself a
workshop. He bought
adjoining properties, which he rebuilt in a simpler style than his
house. He or his heir used this wing as a sugar refinery, so the whole
building became known as the Sugar House.

Presumably it was the workshop that appealed to the
Corporation in 1696, when
looking for a suitable building to use as a mint. The Sugar House was
taken over for the purpose. The mint was short-lived. It closed two
years later. Yet the name The Mint stuck to the building for decades.

It was also in 1696 that the innovatory Bristol Poor Act
established a new body to manage poor relief in the city - the
Corporation of the Poor. The driving force behind it was Bristol
merchant John Cary. He agitated for the better maintenance and
employment of the poor, to replace support by individual parishes. The
Bristol Poor Act created of a union of parishes, which could generate
enough income to effectively run a workhouse. It was the first Act of
its type in the country.

The idea of putting the poor to work was not new. Robert
Aldworth left £1,000 in his will for
just such a purpose. We can picture his ghost looking on with approval
when the Corporation of the Poor decided that his former house was just
what they needed. They bought the building after the mint closed.
Aldworth's panelled reception room became their boardroom. From then
until the Blitz, the house was the headquarters of this body and its
successors. Until 1899 it also housed the desperately poor.

At first it was known as the Mint Workhouse, but later became
St Peter's Hospital. The word hospital was used in the old sense of a
place of refuge, rather than a medical facility, yet it did have an
infirmary. Much poverty sprang from illness and disability. The
building intended as a workhouse took in children, the aged and
lunatics as often as the able-bodied.

Life in the workhouse was far from easy. That was deliberate.
The more people
struggled to keep out of the place, the lower the charges on the
ratepayer. The work was hard and often tedious. Yet it did provide the
necessities of life – food and shelter – and by all accounts the food
was better than many a labourer's family had. Did it seem odd to live
so simply amid the architectural flourishes of a grandee? Sadly there
is no-one alive who can tell us.